Replicated Wanderer

by QuartzScale

XXXIV. Regretful

I had taken shelter within the confines of the caves I had gouged out of the mountain and started to use my hands to force most of the logs I had gotten ready into place. Posts were set an equidistant set of meters from each other if only to keep them loadbearing for the moment.

Honestly, I was working off my frustration with the last displaced person I dealt with. His problems had bled into this world and left me forced to call for aid. I even questioned whether or not I could handle the Unversed myself. I could’ve tried long before I brought in someone who had a keyblade. The weapon I got from him was just as different as Wyatt’s had been.

Wyatt, the Rider, had given me the signature Rider Kick. I had practiced during my work of getting logs ready to act as support pillars. Apparently my feet were wreathed in energy and I started to used several kicks I shouldn’t have known. I had even performed a bicycle kick while still landing back on my feet. Harpuia took credit for that in the end.

Alex, the Keyblader, gave me a light beam. Apparently it mimicked the property of the keyblade when it fired off the beam it used to lock things off. It seemed it would be useful against creatures of darkness. Corundum would be an exception if he was wearing either a flesh suit or in golem form. In shadow form he would be dead.

I also tried out their charged shot form. Rider Kick released an explosion regardless of what I kicked sending a wave of energy out a half a meter out of my body. The Light Beam released chains of light from my buster which seemed to entangle and wrap around whatever I aimed at. It probably had immobilization properties.

Both seemed useful… but after what happened with Star Swirl made me not want any other displaced to come to this world. They had forced the deeds of a Star Swirl of another timeline onto him. Both Wyatt and Alex… and I wanted to shoot them both in the face for their complete and utter disregard for not treating the Star Swirl of my world as his own being. All of them seemed to be powerful magi that transcended the very limits of magic.

Whatever problems either of them had weren’t my concern when they both seemed to have found better lives for themselves. Hell, I still didn’t understand anything Alex said when he was rambling at the end in his admission of guilt for acting like he did. I couldn’t even hate him because he was just a kid. Well… I could but it wouldn’t help me in the long run.

If he had been an adult then I probably would have slugged them in the face. It wouldn’t be uncalled for after the way they acted. I didn’t even know which gender they wanted to be since the girl with him used him while the colt used her. Too damn confusing to me.

That left me with the problem with Star Swirl. The fact that the last two incursions of a sort had left an even fouler taste in his mouth than my own. Cause and Effect was in full force at this point. I had that feeling in the pit of my nonexistent stomach.

When I stepped out of the cave… the landscape had been turned back to normal. There was no sign that anything had happened. The sensors were going off revealing heavier levels of chaos magic. At first I thought Alex had done something but… he was far too weak on the chaos axis. That meant Discord…

It was weird he wanted to keep the status quo… at least I thought at first. Though as my thoughts kept lingering I realized what kind of being Discord was.

Narcissistic… selfish… controlling… that was part of who he was in the last couple of encounters we had. When he appeared he had to be the center of the show and any other being who tried wound up either a pawn or just another gear in the machine. That was how he tried to spin it from what I could tell.

Corundum and Discord were the threats I most looked at as what I needed to take care of. Whether that actually meant I would kill them was only certain of Corundum. Regardless of how much I kept to being pacifistic regarding the citizens of this world I was being given less and less choice to actually exercise that.

Corruption was the name of the game and Corundum played it well even when he wasn’t around. Every single red jewel he had managed to spread throughout the world had a sliver of his soul within. Cut off and autonomous yet capable of coalescing with the rest of his soul whenever he wanted.

Discord was also corrupting even if he couldn’t affect me, he could affect everything else. Magic seemed to have diminishing effects on my body and mind. More so in my mind than my body. Magic that didn’t try to trap or carry me could be mostly ignored. Magic that physically attacked me, pushed me back, scuffed me, or elementally struck me had to be dodged still. That was a distinction that I had noticed in some of my battles. Piercing magic seemed to be the most dangerous even if I was still capable of resisting it.

That left their gift. A book which honestly did nothing for me at all. It wasn’t something I really wanted to spread in this world. It wasn’t out of selfishness though. It was more about what it would mean for this world. This magic had absolutely no basis for existing in this world being fundamentally different to every single spell that I’ve read within Star Swirl’s book. The fact that these other displaced keep giving me things which could actually force extreme changes to a society that was still not unified exasperated me to no end.

Racial instability was still heavily present in this world. None had to look further than Vicious Aegis to see that. While he was a Pony Supremacist, he was also bias towards earth ponies in general. Most unicorns I’ve seen had turned their nose at pegasi in mostly any situation with very few exceptions. Pegasi make it clear that they only tolerate earth ponies as food growers. That doesn’t even get me started on the Crystal Ponies and Thestrals.

Corundum has stained their image for all races on Crystal ponies. They would probably face sanctions for their expansionist tendencies under his rule. Thestrals are also in the same boat after the attempted ritual sacrifice of Luna. It didn’t help that most of their infrastructure was brutally forced to become Crystal golems… at the behest of their former leader.

I released a sigh and finally managed to stop wringing my wrists. I hadn’t noticed that I had started it until I looked at my hands. I couldn’t even feel them do that throughout my mental lambastations. The sensitivity of my body was on purpose due to the constant combat I had been under. Had I not had that set low I probably would have been deterred by that Celestia wannabe’s magic spears. The auto repair functions of my body had nearly taken the entirety of my secondary energy source after everything that happened.

Fifteen percent… that was the reading on my secondary energy source. With the moon still out I was beside myself with frustration. I needed to check on Star Swirl. I needed to put these tokens in a lockbox and keep them sealed in all but the most serious situations. Even then only in life and death situations should I ever have to break them out.

I wasn’t exactly feeling up to speaking with others when it feels as though they aren’t treating a situation seriously. Also the time discrepancies made it impossible to allow any of them to actually meet the ponies of my reality without them opening their fat mouths and saying something stupid.

‘Sir… the Suffering Circuit is being overtaxed by your thoughts.’ Nana informed me causing me to slap my forehead and facepalm.

‘Right… sorry. Just… these last few things have been getting to me more than I thought.’ I admitted though I was quickly locking off those thoughts if only to help me stop thinking of them for the moment.

‘Understandable Master X, but allies are allies regardless of how foolish they turn out to be.’ Harpuia cut in clearly looking for an opening to speak.

‘I take it you have some concerns?’ I questioned. As far as I was concerned they were beings I needed to hear from both tactically and socially.

‘Admittedly no. I want to but our enemies have proven to be formidable enough that we may need allies. I would like to offer a suggestion though. Go see Star Swirl.’ Harpuia offered. ‘He is most likely confused and probably pissed off. Being blamed for things his counterparts have done will lead towards bad options. And like it or not those others don’t know that you are his friend. Neither do they know that he has friends. Their assumptions come off of negligence and hearsay.’

‘Yeah… I’ve noticed. Let’s hope he’s in a talkative mood then.’ I sighed as I placed the teleportation unit near the cave. I then found the largest rock I could find and carried it over the opening of the cave. Using Fire Wave I melted it to the ground. I would have to do more work to get it out of the way but it was worth the extra level of security.

---

I teleported into Star Swirl’s sanctum… to find a clearly drunk Star Swirl sitting at the large table. None of the other Pillars were around either. He took one look at me and chuckled before taking another long draught of his liquor of choice. It was amber in color meaning a dark spirit, probably whisky or bourbon. Admittedly whatever the pony equivalent would be at this time since those aren’t exactly one to one comparisons.

“Hey… X! Hi, hey, ho, ho-how ya doin?” Star Swirl lurched out of his seat falling to the floor face first. “Who… who put this floor here!?”

I quickly picked him up and placed him back on the chair. When he went for the bottle I stopped him from grabbing it. He looked at me petulantly but his eyes soon turned downcast as if he was realizing it wouldn’t work out that way. His head fell on the table and silence reigned.

I don’t know how long we waited but I knew he needed to be sober… more so than he was at the moment. He mumbled several swears under his breath mostly at himself and the two others who drove him to this. He pretty much called me several derogatory terms which seemed to apply mostly to ponies including one about a glue factory.

When all was said and done he apologized with heartfelt intent cursing his half measures. I stopped him several times just to make him really think about things. I couldn’t exactly blame the rambling of a drunk old man when he was being forced to feel the weight of what he did in other realities.

“You know… we used to be friends.” He started quietly enough that had I not had robot hearing I would have missed it.

“Stygian?” I answered, my tone betraying my knowledge of said topic but he said nothing against it.

“Yeah. At first we caught him performing a ritual with the artifacts we wielded. Didn’t know what it did but knee jerk reactions were in effect that day. We banished him.” He explained though the slight slur of his voice and the hacking of phlegm stuck in his throat destroyed the mood. I ignored it in favor of continuing the story.

“Regretting your decision?” I asked cautiously. There was no need to rock the boat or pretend to be so sanctimonious about condemning his actions. It wouldn’t change anything.

“Yes… in my spare time I’ve been looking for him to actually fix what was broken. He was my friend and as much as I worked for the fate of ponies everywhere I knew very much that I had shunted at least one pony to the side for that.” Star Swirl lamented finding his hoof unconsciously grabbing the bottle of liquor. He didn’t drink but he did stare into the amber finding his muddy reflection staring back.

“Mistakes are made. Decisions have to be made and we can’t predict the future. You aren’t them. They made their own decisions just like you made yours. The fact that you actually care seems to be the crux of who you are as a pony.” I drawled on not really knowing what direction to take this. Whether comforting or not I needed to say something.

“You know… he gathered us. He found us doing our own things, living very meagerly amongst our own ponies. We had no drive to become what we were until he found us.” He started seemingly to recollect things he probably forgot about. “When Sirens were attacking a village we fought them off to the adulation of the ponies there… but Stygian wasn’t lauded as one. The last conversation we had was one of flippant non concern about him when you were sighted.”

“Not too long ago then… what a month or so?” I questioned. It had taken a month for everything that had happened this being the last week of the month.

“Give or take… but now. Now I fear something has been unleashed because of this.” Star Swirl sucked in his breath clearly trying to find the right words.

“About Stygian?” I clarified since I wondered just how much they knew about the Pony of Shadows. My recollection of the show showed them being mortal enemies and clearly not trusting Stygian at all. The pony before me was clearly not the same pony I watched do that. He was tired and broken from what I could tell. His heart rate was lower than it should have been making me worried that he was slowing his heart rate down just because he didn’t want to deal with this.

“Yes… I think he may have been corrupted. Horribly corrupted. Several of our ponies in the information gathering division have noted a creature similar to Corundum’s Umbrum form roaming the southern lands killing dragons. At times they see a grey pony with cerulean mane with arctic blue stripes committing unspeakable acts of violence. As of now we know at the very least thirty dragons have been slaughter, most lesser drakes, but at least four elder drakes.” Star Swirl harshly whispered as he crushed the bottle. Using his magic he healed the wound and banished all the glass as well.

“So what happens now? Are you suggesting we take care of him?” I quickly brought up if only to get the darker choice out of the way quicker.

“I don’t know… I really don’t know. He has become dangerous because of our actions but he is still our friend… was still our friend. Part of me wants to reason with him before he goes any further… but I don’t think that’s possible at this time I wish our Project Harmony would be ready but the fact that it was barely planted three days ago makes that impossible.” Star Swirl slammed his head down again hiding his eyes from my sight.

“Do they know?” I brought up clearly uncertain of the direction this was going.

“Yes. They all know. Somnambula is taking this the hardest and has been inconsolable for the entirety of the day. Magnus is conflicted due to his continued battle against the dragons. He isn’t sure what is happening is bad but he doesn’t know how to feel about it.” Star Swirl rumbled as his voice carried off the table surface.

“I should handle it then.” I stated clearly keeping my sight where his eyes would shoot up. They didn’t.

“No. I will never ask nor want you to do so. This is my problem and I shall take responsibility for it. Worst case scenario… you’ll have to avenge us.” He answered clearly showing me the bloodshot eyes he had hidden.

“And if I decide to save you from your own stupidity?” I snarled making certain I allowed my emotions to boil through.

“Then you’ll have been a better friend than I ever have.” He started as he nursed the bottle a bit more.

“I see.”

There wasn’t much more to say. A personal silence fell over both of us. He stewed in his own thoughts trying to decide whether to drink again or not. I was lost in my own thoughts wondering what I was going to actually do for this group. It took a while until he finally spoke again.

“X… they want to discuss something with you. Since you are here, Puddinghead has a mission for you.” Star Swirl informed me looking as though he was starting to feel the alcohol pass through.

“Something bad is happening again, isn’t it? Always something horrible is happening and I never get called for tea.” I pouted leaving a fake sigh on my tone that at least made him chuckle… although very sorrowfully.

“This world is one of chaos… and order. There is no harmony here. Only extremes in every direction. As it stands there may be a way to unite it but at this point there are only two beings which fit that mark. In the skies stands the Lord of Chaos lording his unknown strings upon the world waiting to descend fully and unleash them. He cares nothing for chaos that comes from natural life and instead values his own chaos over the rest. In the grounds lies the Shadow of the Umbrum, Goring Corundum silently plotting a new world order, his world order. He would see all living beings die just to meet some evolutionary mecca of absolutism. The absolute power of being something beyond the realm of mortal understanding, a plain that solely stand on at this point.” He licked his lips trying to find the words to continue. “And you stand here one of order but willing to compromise and adhere to natural change. All I can figure is that when you arrived, the world decided to change to fit a new prerogative in how we should live. We must unite… all races if even for but a moment, if we want to stand the tide against them.”

“I’ve noticed. I’ve noticed all too well how badly things are going to get. I’ll be honest… even if I go these places there’s a chance that it won’t work out the way we expect them. Looking out for all of you… I can only do so much since let’s face it. The racial ties between ponies is tentative and the ones amongst the other races are just as bad. I’ll force something into being… but I doubt it would take hold as well as I would like it to.” I managed a real sigh even though the breath was faked. I wasn’t feeling all that up to it. But it had to be done… so I erased those thoughts of inadequacy from my electronic brain. They weren’t doing me any good so early in the long run. Nana archived them instead.

“Consider these the ramblings of an old stallion… an old stallion who has gone through too much bullshit and doesn’t know what else to do when at the end of his rope. Consider this though… stay and listen to my rambles at least for this dusk lit morning. Perhaps by then I’ll have my answer.” Star Swirl muttered under his breath readying the bottle to his mouth once again.

“Fine. But if you start sharing any racy stories I’m leaving.” I coyly admitted which made him chuckle.

“Then I won’t mention the maiden from Tall Tale I met once New Moon Evening.” Star Swirl chuckled as he finished the bottle off and began to speak.

Come morning I would meet up with Puddinghead and I’ll be heading off to handle the next problem on the horizon.

---

“What are you doi- urk!” A deer groaned out as his neck was sliced open upon a horn.

“That… is what happens to traitors.” Sequoia bellowed to the small cadre of warriors behind the fallen soldier.

Standing several feet tall Sequoia loomed over the entirety of his soldiers. With a crown of ornate horns all adorned with red crystals at each point, the small heart of magic that was lit above the points glowed blood red and pulsed intermittently. His brown coat and white underbelly seemed darker and dirtier than they had been two weeks ago. His crest of an upside down triangle tilted slightly to the left with three counterclockwise spirals trailing off each corner was melting against his armor.

Cedar and Ash… the two who had tried to halt their king were left lying on the ground. Beaten and bruised, but alive they were allowed to crawl their worthless carcassses out of the vicinity even through the zealous amounts of pain they were in.

Their attempt had been noble… but the King had already placed several of the red crystals on the tips of his horn. Instead of his body being ruthlessly modified into a golem… his mind had been open to the poison from the start. Those with red crystals on them slowly and methodically stamped on the now lifeless corpse of the traitor until naught remained but a red paste on the ground.

“Good… now let us begin…” Sequoia growled… as the shift in tone made him sound as though another spoke through his body.

“Link established.”

Author's Note:

Didn't take so long and new story arc is being established. Time to smell the ashes and walk amongst the flames.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Will other Megaman X characters appear in this story?

[QuartzScale]

9649369
Some already do in Cyber elf form. Just read and find out.